Ladies Who Lunch (Fourth Wall Theatre Company)

If a play is going to consist of nothing more dramatic than people talking around a table, then the dialogue must be top-notch. Sadly, despite a few laughs and one passionate confessional speech near the end, much of ‘Ladies Who Lunch’ is lacklustre. The personal dramas are underdeveloped: the relationships lack weight, and never feel authentic. The wider thematic concerns – gender roles and generational conflict – are only superficially touched upon. The baby-boomer ideologies are voiced by young actors; despite their best efforts, they never convey any sense of the age of their characters, and I never believe in their relationships. This was largely the fault of a slightly simplistic script, that indulged its characters’ outdated views without properly excoriating them.